Our customers have spoken and we are back with the box program for another year! We are pleased to be serving the community and we are excited about another year of growing, harvesting and eating nutritious organic food. The farm has always been a place that conversations start and we have been brainstorming.
Pick up your poster to put up to share the lovehere
Sign up for the box programhere
We will have forms at the farm store as well as Seedy Saturday Feb 4th at Qualicum Beach, and Seedy Sunday in Nanaimo, March 5th.

Throughout the past year or two the farm has puzzled over our role in the community and for ourselves. So much of what we are asked to do is information and teaching related, and that has led us to read more, study more, and undertake speaking engagements that are information related.

You will see from the Farm Events List at the bottom of the Newsletter that we have gravitated toward providing opportunities for more community participation in one way or another. As well, we have either enhanced our knowledge or chosen to educate ourselves about ten or more products that over the history of human food have been considered to be substantially beneficial to human health.

Pollinators are becoming a scarce commodity throughout North America, and considering that they are required to pollinate 60% of the food we eat, we need to know more about them and how we can help them to survive.
To start with the Bee Group from VIU is offering three educational classes in Spring and Nanoose Edibles will follow those up with the 'Pollinators on our Farms' discussion.
Our goal revolves around answering your questions. We will call it The Sustainable Garden and it will be all about understanding what it takes to create and maintain a garden that will support you and your family with healthy, nutritious food over the years. The Sustainable Garden Round Table will begin Saturday March 18th from 1:30pm-3:30pm at the farm. We will meet at the sales building on the 2nd Saturday of each month. The topics will be chosen by you. This event will be by donation. We will add more sessions if there is sufficient interest. Bring a permanent notebook and keep good notes.

If you want a local pollinator planting list click here for Barbara's list.

Another goal we have established is to bring the community to the farm for all manner of reasons. Getting children out to see where their food comes from; giving them an opportunity to pick their own food, visit the poultry, go for a walk and do a bird count, find out about honey bees and pollinators in general and perhaps plant some pollinator friendly seeds or plants or get themselves a berry picking job. To that end, when the crops are in abundance we have adopted Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday as Family U-pick Days. Everyone is welcome.

SEED PRODUCTION AND CLEANING is all done for the year. In two weeks time, Feb 4, we head off to Seedy Saturday in Qualicum Beach to celebrate the harvest, sell our surplus seeds and plants and to promote farm activities planned for the farm for the 2017 season. .

Currently, we are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am-4pm. We have greens, carrots, leeks, radishes, collards, hazelnuts, dry beans, fava beans and much more!

We have Albion New York raspberry canes for sale at this time 5 canes for $20 and Cascade delight strawberry plants in bundles. They are amazing fruiting plants.

Vancouver Island University bee club is putting on 3 seminars at VIU.
Pollinators are an important part of our farm and food. Even if you aren't interested in keeping bees it is good to be informed on how each of us can help out.
We will be putting together our own pollinator working group at the farm - stay turned for more information!